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| Image courtesy of Panera Bread |
With a coupon for $2 off any salad, I chose Panera Bread for lunch today.
I’ll warn you right now. I’m a huge Panera fan. I'm impressed by the company’s approach to food preparation, commitment to healthy choices, and dedication to corporate responsibility through the application of conscious capitalism principles. I enjoy the food even more now that I'm familiar with the story behind the brand.
Panera offers seasonal menu selections, including a fruit-laden Strawberry Poppyseed & Chicken Salad. I don’t always appreciate fruit in my salad, but this one is a hit with me, and it's my choice for Day 2.
Like all Panera salads, it's made to order and available in half-sized portions. The halves are great for lighter appetites and for salad/soup, salad/sandwich and salad/pasta combos. I plan on covering some of the combos here this summer.
I ordered the entrée-sized portion without any customization. Even though it was noon and the café was busy, I didn’t wait long for my order to come up.
This is a pretty salad. Inside a cardboard container with a clear top, bite-sized pieces of crisp romaine sit beneath a generous top layer of strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, mandarin oranges, thinly sliced grilled chicken breast and pecans.
Strawberries get lead billing in the name of this salad, but the portions of the other fruits are probably equal or nearly equal. There’s plenty of everything here. And the fruit is nicely chilled, which is especially refreshing on a warm summer day.
The quality of the ingredients is definitely above average. Unlike the strawberries I’ve been seeing at the big-name grocery stores lately, the berries in today's salad were unblemished and perfectly ripe. Same for the other fruit—although truth be told, I’m not crazy about oranges so I pushed most of them aside. And the chicken is perfect.
Side note: I didn't know until I did my research for this blog post that Panera sources its chicken from family farmers. I definitely applaud that.
The fat-free poppyseed salad dressing is split between two separate containers. (If you order a half salad, you get one container.) This is handy if you're trying to minimize the amount you use. But this dressing barely impacts the calorie count, which is a nice benefit considering how much flavor it adds to the salad. It’s primarily sweet, but there’s a little tangy saltiness there, too. You can order a different dressing if you'd like, but I prefer to follow the menu here. Poppyseed dressing is frequently paired with fruit salads, and there's a reason why: it's just darn good.
Every Panera salad comes with a choice of baguette chunk, apple or chips. I chose the baguette. It's the kind of bread that can stand alone without butter—deliciously crunchy on the outside, and wonderfully chewy on the inside. And since the bread and pastries are baked onsite daily, it's often served fresh from the oven. Today's baguette was no exception. It was warm and uber delicious.
I was really satisfied with this lunch. With a plentiful portion of sweet, juicy fruit, I think it's a great alternative to the savory salads I typically gravitate towards.
The verdict? It's a winner. That's two winners in two days. So far, so good.
ITEM
Strawberry Poppyseed & Chicken Salad
EATERY
Panera Bread at 250 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60606
MENU DESCRIPTION
All-natural, antibiotic-free chicken, romaine, fresh strawberries, blueberries, pineapple and Mandarin oranges, pecans and fatfree poppyseed dressing.
CALORIES
350
COST
$7.63 after $2-off coupon and sales tax
RECOMMEND?
Definitely
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